item on ebay

[michael scuffil]

See

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BLUECOAT-SCHOOL-B ... dZViewItem

This is quite an interesting image, and I don't think I've seen it before, but if you read the vendor's description, you will note that it is not a photograph, but a photographic print, i.e. the paper was printed (with ink) and not exposed. In that sense, the fact that it is 111 years old is irrelevant: whatever he says, it is a copy.

[J.R.]

Still seems a bargain at the current price.

£7-99 to be the next bid as I type.

[englishangel]

I read the 'puff' and I think I am going to be sick. I would say it is aimed at a US audience. that last sentence....

[MarkB]

See

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BLUECOAT-SCHOOL-B ... dZViewItem

This is quite an interesting image, and I don't think I've seen it before, but if you read the vendor's description, you will note that it is not a photograph, but a photographic print, i.e. the paper was printed (with ink) and not exposed. In that sense, the fact that it is 111 years old is irrelevant: whatever he says, it is a copy.

That doesn't mean that the image is not worth having. Any photograph produced since photographic paper was invented could be considered a 'copy'. In this case I would expect the print to be genuinely 111 years old and the method used probably collotype, an exceptionally fine form of printing using photo-sensitized gelatin on a glass plate. The process produces a continuous tone print quite unlike anything produced today. It really is indistinguishable from a photograph. The gelatin is fragile and there's a limit to the number of prints that can be taken so offset lithography superseded it.

I agree the language is ghastly.

EDIT: I'll revise that. More likely rotogravure, as the image comes from a magazine. It will be OK, but not like collotype.

[Angela Woodford]

"and get yourself a wonderful piece of our great history from the original time when our ancestors breathed life into this earth!"

There they are... well, breathing life into their instruments anyway. The sound I am making myself is "eee-uch"

[jhopgood]

There is a book called Christ's Hospital in photographs which includes a very similar photo. It is obviously misnamed as it only contains photos from London and Horsham, but is nevertheless, quite interesting.
It states that it is the second volume of the Christ's Hospital papers, so I wonder what the others were about.

[michael scuffil]

There is a book called Christ's Hospital in photographs which includes a very similar photo. It is obviously misnamed as it only contains photos from London and Horsham, but is nevertheless, quite interesting.
It states that it is the second volume of the Christ's Hospital papers, so I wonder what the others were about.

Yes indeed. I looked at the picture in the book, and wondered even whether it might be the same scene from a different angle, but the boys don't appear to be the same. I'm sure it's the same conductor, though.

Christ's Hospital in Photographs Pt II (at least my copy) is devoted at least 50% to Hertford.